Max Planck
1858–1947
Introduced the energy quantum — the starting point of quantum physics.
Knowledge Base · History
125 years: from a physical puzzle to an industry.
Quantum mechanics began in 1900 with an unsolved measurement problem, went on to give the 20th century its electronics, and today underpins an industrial sector of its own. The timeline below gathers the key milestones and the people behind them — concise, with the details one click away.
1900–1925
The beginnings — the world is grainy
A handful of unexplainable measurements forced physics to abandon the picture of continuous energy.
1900
Max Planck: energy comes in portions
Planck could only explain the spectrum of thermal radiation by assuming energy is exchanged in tiny, indivisible portions.
1905
Albert Einstein: light is quantised too
Einstein showed that light itself comes in portions — photons — and used this to explain the photoelectric effect.
1913
Niels Bohr: atomic energy levels
In Bohr's atomic model the electron can only occupy specific orbits, and jumps between energy levels emit or absorb light.
1924
Louis de Broglie: particles are waves too
De Broglie proposed that not only light behaves as a particle, but matter behaves as a wave — every particle has a wavelength.
1925–1935
Building the theory
In a single decade the complete mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics appeared — along with the first great interpretational disputes.
1925
Werner Heisenberg: matrix mechanics
Heisenberg produced the first complete, working mathematical description of quantum mechanics, built exclusively on measurable quantities.
1926
Erwin Schrödinger: the wave equation
Schrödinger wrote down the equation governing how quantum systems evolve in time — one of the most used formulas in physics.
1927
Max Born: the probability interpretation
Born showed that the wave function is not a material wave: it gives the probabilities of measurement outcomes.
1928
Paul Dirac: relativistic quantum theory
Dirac's equation reconciled quantum mechanics with relativity and predicted the existence of antimatter.
1932
John von Neumann: the mathematical foundation
Building on Hilbert spaces, von Neumann gave quantum mechanics a unified, mathematically rigorous framework.
1935
The EPR paradox
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen argued that quantum mechanics was incomplete — and in doing so defined entanglement.
1947–1990
The first quantum technologies
Theory turned into devices. The electronics of the later 20th century rests entirely on quantum physics.
1947
The transistor
At Bell Labs, Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley built the first transistor — the basic element of modern electronics.
1960
The laser
Theodore Maiman built the first working laser, operating on stimulated emission — a purely quantum process.
1964
John Bell's theorem
Bell showed the EPR dispute was not philosophy: experiment can decide whether a hidden-variable explanation exists.
1967
Timekeeping on atomic clocks
The definition of the second moved to a quantum transition in the caesium atom — the world's timekeeping has rested on quantum physics ever since.
1973
MRI — quantum imaging
Magnetic resonance imaging uses the spin of atomic nuclei — a quantum property — to image the inside of the body.
1981–1982
Feynman's proposal and Aspect's experiments
Richard Feynman argued that quantum systems are best simulated by a quantum computer. In parallel, Alain Aspect experimentally violated Bell's inequality.
1984
BB84 — the first quantum key distribution protocol
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard gave a protocol letting two parties share a secret key whose security is guaranteed by physics.
1985
David Deutsch: the universal quantum computer
Deutsch defined the quantum Turing machine and exhibited the first task on which a quantum machine is provably faster.
1994–today
The second quantum revolution
From here the goal is no longer understanding but the deliberate creation and control of individual quantum states — this is engineering and industry.
1994
Peter Shor's algorithm
Shor showed that a quantum computer can factor large numbers efficiently — in principle breaking much of the encryption of today's internet.
1996
Grover's algorithm and error correction
Lov Grover's algorithm speeds up unstructured search, while Shor and Steane showed that quantum errors can in principle be corrected.
2001–2011
First experimental processors and commercial devices
The first few-qubit laboratory processors appeared, and the first commercial QKD systems and quantum random number generators reached the market.
2016
Micius — quantum communication from orbit
China launched the Micius satellite, which demonstrated entanglement-based quantum key distribution over thousands of kilometres.
2019–2023
Quantum advantage claims
Several groups announced that their machines had performed tasks no classical supercomputer could complete in a reasonable time.
2022
Nobel Prize for the experimental proof of entanglement
Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their experiments with entangled photons.
2024
NIST post-quantum standards and EuroQCI
The first finalised post-quantum cryptography standards were published while Europe builds its quantum-secure communication infrastructure.
2025
Nobel Prize for macroscopic quantum phenomena
John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis received the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in electrical circuits.
People
Nine names without whom there would be no quantum technology.
Albert Einstein
1879–1955
The light quantum and the EPR thought experiment: the theory's most productive critic.
Niels Bohr
1885–1962
Atomic model, energy levels, and the Copenhagen school of quantum physics.
Werner Heisenberg
1901–1976
The first complete quantum formalism and the uncertainty relation.
Erwin Schrödinger
1887–1961
The wave equation, still the working tool of quantum chemistry.
John von Neumann
1903–1957
Mathematical foundation of quantum mechanics — the language of quantum computing.
Eugene Wigner
1902–1995
Symmetries in quantum theory; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1963.
John Bell
1928–1990
His theorem turned the entanglement dispute into a measurable question.
Peter Shor
1959–
His algorithm started the global cryptographic migration.
The Hungarian thread
Hungarian researchers and the domestic quantum ecosystem.
Scientists of Hungarian origin played a defining role in laying the foundations of quantum mechanics. John von Neumann's 1932 book gave the theory its mathematically rigorous framework and first treated the measurement problem systematically. Eugene Wigner received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on symmetries in quantum theory. Dennis Gabor's work on holography (Nobel Prize, 1971) became one of the foundations of applying coherent light.
The institutional centre of domestic research is the Wigner Research Centre for Physics, where quantum optics, quantum information and solid-state physics research runs with university partners. Hungary participates in the European quantum programmes, and a national quantum communication segment is being developed under EuroQCI.
In this picture HQCC takes on the role of connector — between research, industry, education and strategy — so that Hungarian organisations are participants, not just observers, in the quantum developments of the coming decade.
Where next?
After the history, the foundations and the terminology are the natural next steps.